Given the prejudice directed toward religious skeptics, it is imperative that we learn as much as we can about this minority group. We administered the Celebrity Attitude Scale (CAS), and some brief additional measures of attitudes about celebrities to a sample of 91 religious believers and 92 skeptics recruited throughout the US from Mechanical Turk. We predicted that skeptics would have less favorable attitudes toward celebrities in general and feel less strongly attached to their own favorite celebrity, as compared to the believers. The first prediction was confirmed but not the second. We also compared believers with skeptics on choices of an “entertainer” vs. “non-entertainer” favorite celebrity, and found no significant difference. The results are discussed in light of current research on religious skeptics and celebrity worshipers.

Abstract: A majority of Americans identify as sports fans, and sports broadcasts attract substantially larger audiences than news on both broadcast and cable television. But despite the outsize role of sports in American life, we know little about how—or whether—sports fandom is related to political attitudes. This paper draws on a representative survey to examine (1) the association between sports fandom and political opinions; and (2) opposition to the “politicization” of sports. Republicans and Democrats are equally likely to follow sports closely. However, sports fandom is positively associated with individualistic attributions for economic success and support for the US military. In addition, conservatives are more likely to resist the intrusion of partisan politics into sports.

The long quest to understand male sexual traits, testosterone, and immunocompetence

Cape ground squirrels have captured Jane Waterman's fascination for the last 30 years. “They’re so cool,” effuses Waterman. Studying them in South Africa, where these beguiling, furry mammals breed year round, she has revealed a treasure trove of surprises. Extremely social, females live in family groups with their young. Males disperse from their family group at about 3 years old, joining bachelor groups. In these all-male groups, males sleep together, groom one another, and move together through the veld. Males have no dominance hierarchy and defend no territories, and it is rare to see any sort of aggressive behavior, explains Waterman. But on the day when a female enters estrus, which lasts about 3 hours, an average of 11 males show up to try to breed. Winners in this mating game are typically older, in better body condition, and “well endowed” with big testes and more sperm, she says. Big testes, theory holds, are usually supported with an abundance of testosterone. But Waterman has not found their testosterone levels higher than those in a lot of other less-endowed species.

This intrigued her. It seemed to Waterman that to support big testes, males had to be able to keep testosterone going year round. In these squirrels, she also found more ectoparasites on males than on females—not only when males are wide-ranging adults but also when they are homebody juveniles. Her hunch was that an influx of testosterone drives a reduced male ability to fend off ectoparasites, espousing an idea known as the immunocompetence handicap hypothesis (ICHH). It is a hypothesis that she, with a graduate student, has recently tested experimentally.

Waterman's test of the ICHH follows on the heels of hundreds of studies since the idea was first articulated in The American Naturalist by Ivar Folstad and Andrew Karter in 1992. The ICHH proposes that elaborate male ornaments or signs of vigor are mediated at least in part by testosterone but that testosterone is costly in terms of compromising immune function. The ICHH is an influential hypothesis tracing its lineage back to Darwin's first musings about the tail of the peacock, the antlers of deer, and other exaggerated male traits that could attract the attention of females but might be costly for survival. For scientists who had long thought about sexual selection from a theoretical standpoint, here was a potential mechanism to explain it. The duality of testosterone—sexy but costly—suggested authors Folstad and Karter, provides a cue to choosy females as to which males cope with this burden best.

Abstract: The development of mobile phones has largely increased human interactions. Whilst the use of these devices for communication has received significant attention, there has been little analysis of more passive interactions. Through census data on casual social groups, this work suggests a clear pattern of mobile phones being carried in people’s hands, without the person using it (that is, not looking at it). Moreover, this study suggests that when individuals join members of the opposite sex there is a clear tendency to stop holding mobile phones whilst walking. Although it is not clear why people hold their phones whilst walking in such large proportions (38% of solitary women, and 31% of solitary men), we highlight several possible explanation for holding the device, including the need to advertise status and affluence, to maintain immediate connection with friends and family, and to mitigate feelings related to anxiety and security.

Objectives: The regulatory role of the brain in directing eating behavior becomes increasingly recognized. Although many areas in the brain have been found to respond to food cues, very little data is available after actual caloric intake. The aim of this study was to determine normal whole brain functional responses to ingestion of glucose after an overnight fast.

Results: Ingestion of glucose led to increased centrality in the thalamus and to decreases in BOLD signal in various brain areas. Decreases in connectivity in the sensory-motor and dorsal visual stream networks were found. Ingestion of water resulted in increased centrality across the brain, and increases in connectivity in the medial and lateral visual cortex network. Increased BOLD intensity was found in the intracalcarine and cingulate cortex.

Discussion: Our data show that ingestion of glucose leads to decreased activity and connectivity in brain areas and networks linked to energy seeking and satiation. In contrast, drinking plain water leads to increased connectivity probably associated with continued food seeking and unfulfilled reward.

Investigating Gender Differences in Mathematics and Science: Results from the 2011 Trends in Mathematics and Science Survey. David Reilly, David L. Neumann, Glenda Andrews. Research in Science Education, https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11165-017-9630-6

Abstract: The underrepresentation of women in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM)-related fields remains a concern for educators and the scientific community. Gender differences in mathematics and science achievement play a role, in conjunction with attitudes and self-efficacy beliefs. We report results from the 2011 Trends in Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS), a large international assessment of eighth grade students’ achievement, attitudes, and beliefs among 45 participating nations (N = 261,738). Small- to medium-sized gender differences were found for most individual nations (from d = −.60 to +.31 in mathematics achievement, and d = −.60 to +.26 for science achievement), although the direction varied and there were no global gender differences overall. Such a pattern cross-culturally is incompatible with the notion of immutable gender differences. Additionally, there were different patterns between OECD and non-OECD nations, with girls scoring higher than boys in mathematics and science achievement across non-OECD nations. An association was found between gender differences in science achievement and national levels of gender equality, providing support for the gender segregation hypothesis. Furthermore, the performance of boys was more variable than that of girls in most nations, consistent with the greater male variability hypothesis. Boys reported more favorable attitudes towards mathematics and science, and girls reported lower self-efficacy beliefs. While the gender gap in STEM achievement may be closing, there are still large sections of the world where differences remain.

Abstract: People do not trust hypocrites, because they preach water, but drink wine. The current research shows that, ironically, when we distrust, we become moral hypocrites ourselves. We argue that experiencing distrust alerts us to the possibility that others may intent to exploit us, and that such looming exploitation differentially affects moral standards for the self versus others. Four studies (N = 1,225) examined this possibility and its underlying motivational dynamic. Study 1 established a relationship between dispositional distrust and flexible, self-serving moral cognition. In Studies 2 and 3, participants experiencing distrust (vs. trust) endorsed more lenient moral standards for themselves than for others. Study 4 explored the role of the motivation to avoid exploitation in these effects. Specifically, participants’ dispositional victim sensitivity moderated the effect of distrust on hypocrisy. Together, these findings suggest that individuals who distrust and fear to be exploited show self-serving, and hence untrustworthy, moral cognition themselves.

Highlights• State mindfulness impaired motivation to complete cognitive and performance tasks.• State mindfulness had no overall effect (good or bad) for performance on same tasks.• Weakened future focus and arousal serially mediated demotivating effect.• Mindfulness enabled people to detach from stressors, which improved task focus.• Detachment and task focus help explain why mindfulness does not alter performance.

Abstract: A state of mindfulness is characterized by focused, nonjudgmental awareness of the present moment. The current research experimentally investigated how state mindfulness influences task motivation and performance, using multiple meditation inductions, comparison conditions, tasks, and participant samples. Mindfulness inductions, relative to comparison conditions, reduced motivation to tackle mundane tasks (Experiments 1–4) and pleasant tasks (Experiment 2). Decreased future focus and decreased arousal serially mediated the demotivating effect of mindfulness (Experiments 3 and 4). In contrast to changes in motivation, inducing a state of mindfulness did not affect task performance, as seen in all experiments but one (Experiments 2–5). Meta-analyses of performance experiments, including unreported findings (i.e., the file drawer), supported these conclusions. Experiment 5’s serial mediation showed that mindfulness enabled people to detach from stressors, which improved task focus. When combined with mindfulness’s demotivating effects, these results help explain why mindfulness does not alter performance.